REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT AT RALLY
FOR THE MICHIGAN COORDINATED CAMPAIGN

Cobo Hall Convention Center
Detroit, Michigan

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you so much. Can you hear me in the back?
Well, I'm doing the best I can. But if you'll be a little more quiet,
I'll be a little louder and maybe you can hear. Can you hear now? I
will do the best I can; and you do the best you can. (Applause.)

Mayor Archer, County Executive Ed McNamara, Congressman Carr, folks,
Bob Carr gave a good speech and you ought to give him a good vote on
November the 8th and send him to the United States Senate. (Applause.)

And I hope you will support Howard Wolpe and Debbie Stabenow.
(Applause.) I thank Senator Riegle, Senator Levin, Congressman Conyers,
Congressman Ford, Congressman Kildee, Congressman Dingell, Congressman
Bonior, and two people you ought to send to Congress -- Bob Mitchell and
Lynn Rivers -- I thank them all for being here. (Applause.)

I'm glad to see your Secretary of State Dick Austin. And I want to
ask you to support Judge Conrad Mallett, who is not here today.
(Applause.)

I thank the Straight Gate Gospel Choir -- (applause); the Murray
Wright High School Band -- (applause); the Mason Drummer Corps --
(applause); and Jennifer Holiday, was she great or what? (Applause.)

Ladies and gentlemen, we're a week before election. There have been
some clouds in this election, but they're starting to clear. The sun is
coming out; the choice is becoming stark and clear and unambiguous. Do
we want to go forward, or turn back? Do we want to support people who
vote for ordinary Americans, or people who just vote for organized
interest groups? (Applause.)

You know, 21 months ago -- let them talk, wait, they couldn't get a
crowd like this, they had to come to ours. (Applause.) And we welcome
a little free speech and debate. If we had more of it, we'd be doing
even better in this election. (Applause.)

Let me ask you something, folks. When we came here 21 months ago,
you elected me President to change this country and to move this country
forward; to face up to 30 years of social problems, 20 years of economic
stagnation, 12 years of their trickle-down economics, and four years of
the worst job growth since the Great Depression. We said we could
change that -- (applause) -- and we've been working at it steadily; to
make this government work for ordinary people; to get this economy going
again; to empower people so that they can compete in this global
economy; and to make this world safer and more secure.

And I tell you, folks, there are still a lot of problems in America,
but we have made a very good start. This country is in better shape,
and we don't need to go back now. (Applause.)

If you look at Michigan alone, because of the work of our
administration, with the help of these members of Congress behind us,
1.5 million workers are now protected by the family and medical leave
law, so they can take a little time off when a baby is born or a parent
is sick -- (applause); 400,000 working families with children in their
homes got a tax cut so they won't fall into poverty if they're working
full time and raising their kids. (Applause.) You heard the mayor
talking about the crime bill -- more police, more prisons, tougher
punishment, and prevention to give our children something to say yes to
as well as something to say no to. (Applause.)

We brought down the deficit that the other party only talked about.
We slashed the bureaucracy they only complained about. We cut the
regulations that they only gagged over but never did anything about.
When we put this economic strategy forward, the Republicans said if it
passed, the economy would collapse. Well, they were wrong. (Applause.)

In 21 months we have cut the deficit three years in a row for the
first time since Truman was President. We have shrunk the federal
government, but we have invested more in your jobs, your future, and we
have 4.6 million new jobs in America. (Applause.) In Michigan, we've
seen a 1.5 percent plus drop in the unemployment rate.

Is there more to do? You bet there is. Yes, there is. But if
there's more to do we ought to keep on doing what we've been doing for
21 months, not go back to what worked so poorly for 12 years before.
(Applause.)

It was in the last 21 months that we expanded the Head Start program;
that we passed a law to immunize all the kids in this country under the
age of two by 1996; that we passed laws to have apprenticeship programs
all over this country to help people who don't want to go to college
move from school to work into good jobs, not dead-end jobs. (Applause.)

We passed the reform in the student loan laws to provide for lower
cost, longer repayment student loans, so that every middle class student
in this country, and every poor kid in this country can afford to go to
college and get a good education, and not drop out and not turn back.
(Applause.) In Michigan alone, 580,000 people will be eligible for
better terms on their college loans because of this administration and
its partners in the Congress. (Applause.)

And let me just say this. I noticed that Mr. Carr's opponent ran a
television ad using my voice against him, saying if it hadn't been for
him we wouldn't have passed the economic program. Well, that's why your
unemployment rate is down; that's why your jobs are up; that's why this
country is moving forward. (Applause.)

But I want to give you another one, and I bet you won't see this in
his television ad. If it hadn't been for Bob Carr, we would never have
had the votes to reform the student loan program; we wouldn't be having
20 million more Americans eligible for lower interest rates, lower
costs, better repayment terms. If the other fellow had been there, it
never would have happened. And that's the kind of choice we're facing
in this election. (Applause.)

What have they done? They said no to student loan reform. They said
no to the crime bill. They said no to family leave. They said no to
the reduction of the deficit. They said no to economic recovery.
That's what they did. They killed campaign finance reform and lobby
reform and the Superfund bill to clean up the toxic waste dumps. And
now they have told us what they will do if you put them in office.

They want to take us back, back to trickle-down economics; back to
massive tax cuts on the wealthy. They have made you a trillion dollars
worth of promises. Elect us, they say, and all will be easy -- tax
cuts, spending increases, a balanced budget. Does it sound familiar?

Their contract on America doesn't say much about how they're going to
pay for this. But they do say that if you give them power they will cut
$9 billion worth of college loans for over three million students. We
ought to be sending more people to college, not less people. Vote for
the Democrats, and keep this country moving forward. (Applause.)

Listen to this. This is their argument. This is their argument.
They say, well, this is a tough election for Republicans. The Democrats
took our issues away. We were always for jobs, against crime, against
big government. We were active in foreign policy. Now, the democrats
have given us three years of deficit reduction in a row for the first
time since Truman, the smallest federal government since Kennedy, the
toughest crime bill ever, a growing economy in a safer and more secure
world. We would be saying, if we did it, that we should build a statue
to the Republicans if we'd done it. But, my goodness, the Democrats did
it. How are we going to run this race?

I know, they say. We will deny that it happened. We will take the
cynicism of the public and build on it. We will take the skepticism of
the public and feed it. We will take the unbelievable reluctance of
people to believe in this country again and we will stoke it. We will
divide the people. We will throw a smokescreen over the election. We
will attack them for big government and taxes, even though they cut
taxes on working people and gave us less government and moved the
economy forward and made the country safer. That's what their program
is. (Applause.)

Their program, my fellow Americans, is to keep everybody shouting,
keep the country in a turmoil, keep the people upset. Let me tell you
something. This country has problems. There are still too many people
who are worried about losing their jobs, who haven't gotten a raise, who
are afraid they'll lose their health care, who are looking for work and
don't have it. But the country is in better shape than it was 21 months
ago.

Don't let them sucker you. Keep going where we're going. Show up on
Election Day. Stand up for what is right. Don't turn back. We can do
better. (Applause.)

I just got back from an incredible trip. I saw our fine soldiers in
the Persian Gulf standing up for freedom there. I saw the peace in the
Middle East. I saw the faces of millions of people looking at America,
looking to America for support. Let me tell you something, folks. From
Northern Ireland to Haiti to the Persian Gulf to the Middle East to
Korea, people say we like the United States. It's a country of energy,
a country of freedom, a country of growth, a country of tomorrow.
(Applause.)

They are not cynical about us. I wish you could have seen the faces
of our young men and women in uniform in the Persian Gulf there, in the
desert, and all those soldiers from other countries looking at them. I
wish you could see the faces of the Haitians holding up their little
"thank you, America" sign when President Aristide went home and
democracy came back to those people. They aren't cynical about America.

Folks, 90 percent of the cynics about America are in America. They
listen to people who are screaming all the time, who are shouting all
the time, who are trying to divide this country all the time. Let me
tell you something. This is a very great country, and its best days are
ahead of it. (Applause.) Our best days are ahead of us.

We have challenges ahead of us. We do not need the easy promises and
the failed policies of the past. We need to say, this is America.
We're getting this economy going; we're educating our people; we're
making this government work for average Americans again. This world is
going to be safer and more prosperous. We are going into the future.

Say no to the failed policies of the past. Say yes to going to the
future. Say no to fear and yes to hope. Say no to the people who are
always trying to denigrate everything we do to move this country
forward. And say yes to Bob Carr and the other Democrats who are
running for you and your future. (Applause.)